When the first gun was fired at 3.54 P.M., Porter had not yet been able to get a spring on his cable and could not bring a gun to bear on either ship. For five minutes the _Essex_ lay as an idle target. But as the spring was made fast and the cable veered, the long twelves began to bark and it was then that the _Cherub_ made haste to get clear of the fire from forward, and take a place near the _Phœbe_. They both delivered a raking fire which “continued about ten minutes, but produced no visible effect,” to quote Hillyar’s report to Commodore Brown of the Jamaica station. But if the British fire produced no “visible effect,” the fire of the guns of the _Essex_ was so well directed that Hillyar “increased our distance by wearing,” and he confesses that “appearances were a little inauspicious.” In fact, at the end of half an hour both the British ships sailed out of range to repair damages alow and aloft. The _Phœbe_ alone had seven holes at the water-line to plug and she had lost the use of her mainsail and jib, her fore, main, and mizzen stays were shot away, and her jib-boom was badly wounded. This much the British admit. But it had been a losing fight on the _Essex_, nevertheless. The springs on the cable were shot away three times and could be renewed only after delays that prevented working the guns under full speed, and the heavy shot of the enemy’s long guns had been cutting down the crew. And then the enemy returned once more to the fight. Brave Lieutenant William Ingram, of the _Phœbe_, wanted to close in and carry the _Essex_ by boarding. The two British ships had at this time more than two men to the one of the _Essex_, but Hillyar refused, quoting the orders he had received from his superiors as a reason, and saying he had “determined not to leave anything to chance.” He would not face Yankee cutlasses wielded in defence of the _Essex_. So the safest possible positions were chosen, and fire was again opened at 5.35 P.M. It was “a most galling fire, which we were powerless to return.” Even the _Essex’s_ “stern guns could not be brought to bear.” At this juncture, the wind having shifted, Captain Porter ordered his crew to slip the cable and make sail; and it was then found that the running gear had been so badly cut that only the flying jib could be spread.